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Granada Studios (or alternatively Quay Street Studios or even Granadaland) were television studios on Quay Street in Manchester with the facility to broadcast live and film drama programmes and were the headquarters of Granada Television (then Granada Media Group and later ITV Granada) between 1956 and 2013. The studios were the oldest operating purpose-built television studios in the United Kingdom. Firsts at the studios include The Beatles' first television performance in 1962, the first general election debate in 2010, and it is where the world's longest running serial drama and documentary series (''Coronation Street'' and ''7 Up!'' respectively) were produced. Until 2010, the studios had a red neon Granada TV sign on the roof of the building which was a landmark for rail passengers travelling from the west into Manchester city centre. A decorative broadcasting tower was erected at the behest of Sidney Bernstein to give the studios an embellished and professional appearance. At its top, this tower had an enclosed, steerable, microwave dish which, pre-satellite, provided line of sight outside broadcast links to the company's 'Eagle Tower' vehicles. There are three main studios, which each cover over . The studios were owned by ITV Studios and BBC Resources through a joint venture company, 3SixtyMedia. After a dip in production during the early 2000s, the studios underwent a revival from 2009 until their closure. ''Countdown'' moved to Manchester from the Leeds Studios in 2009. Programmes such as ''John Bishop's Britain'', ''The Chase'', ''Divided'', ''Take Me Out'' and ''High Stakes'' were recorded here and the studios hosted the first ever General Election debate in April 2010. The studios closed in June 2013, and ITV Granada and ITV Studios moved to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays and Trafford Quays. Granada House is not a listed building but will non-the-less be retained as part of new proposals by Allied London. This will generally consist of exhibition space and a new bespoke hotel. Plans have also emerged for the refurbishment of Ralph Tubbs's Granada House to B+ office space, rather than demolishing the building. Although there have been calls to maintain the Coronation Street set little appetite exists with local authorities keen to free up new prime city centre land for further commercial development opportunities such as the continuing Spinningfields development. In 2013 the site was sold for £26 million. ==History== After Granada secured the contract for broadcasting to the North of England on weekdays, the company built a television studio complex while the BBC, Associated Rediffusion, ATV and ABC (Granada's weekend counterparts) converted film studios, cinemas and churches for television use. The difficulty was that equipment for film was incompatible and new areas were required for playout and transmission facilities. Granada bypassed these problems by creating new studios. Sidney Bernstein chose its base for northern operations from Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. Granada executive, Victor Peers, believed Manchester was the preferred choice even before Granada executives, Peers, Denis Forman, Reg Hammans and Sidney Bernstein, toured possible locations.〔 One site was identified by Hammans in Leeds and three were found in Manchester which convinced Bernstein to explore further.〔 Two sites were deemed expensive, and another in Salford Quays was rejected by Bernstein as inadequate. A site on Quay Street in Manchester city centre owned by Manchester City Council was bought for £82,000.〔 The land supposedly hosted a cemetery containing pauper's graves, where 22,000 people were buried. Part of the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal, which linked the River Irwell to the Rochdale Canal from 1839 to 1922, ran in tunnel underneath the site. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Granada Studios」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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